Development of Executive Function-Relevant Skills Is Related to Both Neural Structure and Function in Infants

Autor/inn/en	Zhao, T. Christina; Corrigan, Neva M.; Yarnykh, Vasily L.; Kuhl, Patricia K.
Titel	Development of Executive Function-Relevant Skills Is Related to Both Neural Structure and Function in Infants
Quelle	In: Developmental Science, 25 (2022) 6, (13 Seiten) PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Zusatzinformation	ORCID (Zhao, T. Christina)
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	1363-755X
DOI	10.1111/desc.13323
Schlagwörter	Infants; Executive Function; Skill Development; Cognitive Ability; Infant Behavior; Correlation; Neurological Organization; Learning Processes; Brain; Age Differences + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Infant; Toddler; Toddlers; Kleinkind; Kompetenzentwicklung; Qualifikationsentwicklung; Denkfähigkeit; Korrelation; Learning process; Lernprozess; Gehirn; Age; Difference; Age difference; Altersunterschied
Abstract	The development of skills related to executive function (EF) in infancy, including their emergence, underlying neural mechanisms, and interconnections to other cognitive skills, is an area of increasing research interest. Here, we report on findings from a multidimensional dataset demonstrating that infants' behavioral performance on a flexible learning task improved across development and that the task performance is highly correlated with both neural structure and neural function. The flexible learning task probed infants' ability to learn two different associations, concurrently, over 16 trials, requiring multiple skills relevant to EF. We examined infants' neural structure by measuring myelin density in the brain, using a novel macromolecular proton fraction (MPF) mapping method. We further examined an important neural function of speech processing by characterizing the mismatch response (MMR) to speech contrasts using magnetoencephalography (MEG). All measurements were performed longitudinally in monolingual English-learning infants at 7- and 11-months of age. At the group level, 11-month-olds, but not 7-month-olds, demonstrated evidence of learning both associations in the behavioral task. Myelin density in the prefrontal region at 7 months of age was found to be highly predictive of behavioral task performance at 11 months of age, suggesting that myelination may support the development of these skills. Furthermore, a machine-learning regression analysis revealed that individual differences in the behavioral task are predicted by concurrent neural speech processing at both ages, suggesting that these skills do not develop in isolation. Together, these cross-modality results revealed novel insights into EF-related skills. (As Provided).
Anmerkungen	Wiley. Available from: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030. Tel: 800-835-6770; e-mail: cs-journals@wiley.com; Web site: https://www.wiley.com/en-us
Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2024/1/01